Psalms 27:1-2

Psalm 27 1 

By David.

27:1 The Lord delivers and vindicates me! 2 

I fear no one! 3 

The Lord protects my life!

I am afraid of no one! 4 

27:2 When evil men attack me 5 

to devour my flesh, 6 

when my adversaries and enemies attack me, 7 

they stumble and fall. 8 

Psalms 28:8

28:8 The Lord strengthens his people; 9 

he protects and delivers his chosen king. 10 

Psalms 140:7

140:7 O sovereign Lord, my strong deliverer, 11 

you shield 12  my head in the day of battle.

1 sn Psalm 27. The author is confident of the Lord’s protection and asks the Lord to vindicate him.

2 tn Heb “the Lord [is] my light and my deliverance.” “Light” is often used as a metaphor for deliverance and the life/blessings it brings. See Pss 37:6; 97:11; 112:4; Isa 49:6; 51:4; Mic 7:8. Another option is that “light” refers here to divine guidance (see Ps 43:3).

3 tn Heb “Whom shall I fear?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “No one!”

4 tn Heb “Of whom shall I be afraid?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “No one!”

5 tn Heb “draw near to me.”

6 sn To devour my flesh. The psalmist compares his enemies to dangerous, hungry predators (see 2 Kgs 9:36; Ezek 39:17).

7 tn Heb “my adversaries and my enemies against me.” The verb “draw near” (that is, “attack”) is understood by ellipsis; see the previous line.

8 tn The Hebrew verbal forms are perfects. The translation assumes the psalmist is generalizing here, but another option is to take this as a report of past experience, “when evil men attacked me…they stumbled and fell.”

9 tn Heb “the Lord [is] strength to them” (or perhaps, “to him”). The form לָמוֹ (lamo, “to them/him”) is probably a corruption of an original לְעַמוֹ (lÿ’amo, “to his people”; see P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 [WBC], 236), perhaps due to quiescence of the letter ayin (ע; see P. McCarter, Textual Criticism [GBS], 55). Note the reference to the Lord’s “people” in the next verse.

10 tn Heb “he [is] a refuge of help for his anointed one.” The noun מָשִׁיחַ (mashiakh, “anointed one”) refers to the Davidic king, who perhaps speaks as representative of the nation in this psalm. See Pss 2:2; 18:50; 20:6; 84:9; 89:38, 51; 132:10, 17.

11 tn Heb “the strength of my deliverance.”

12 tn Heb “cover.”